I’ve gotten a lot of response on my last post; understandable responses sent privately to my e-mail and some posted for all to see. From some I got encouragement and people telling me that they were praying for me (thanks). Others sympathized and related because they know all to well how it feels. Others told me that I was hanging myself on a rack of guilt and that it could be possible that Christ was a problem and not an asset to my life. All responses were appreciated.
There has been this ongoing joke lately with my friends about breaking up. We say that breaking up is like painting a wall; it never ends after one coat. Go ahead, laugh. It’s funny. Melissa also just painted her new room that she is so excited to move into. Also, Todd at Freedomize started off his message talking about painting a wall. All this painting talk made me start thinking about painting walls. I find that our lives as Christians are much like a wall being painted.
When we get saved, it’s like we give Christ the paintbrush and the paint and he gets to work. Overtime he begins to paint. First he needs to strip off the old paint and prime it to get it ready for the new coat. All the while, you would never want to move into the room; it would look pretty distasteful. Even once the fresh coats of paint start being put on, have you ever seen how ugly a room can look only after a first coat of paint? There are streaks everywhere. Missed spots. It’s not somewhere that I would jump at the opportunity to live.
Maybe our lives are kind of like these walls. While all the process of us being painted, we don’t look the best. In fact, at times we may look worse off as we did before the process even began. But it’s not the process that is being rated or judged. In fact, God said that it’s not by works we are saved. Nothing we do to make the process look better or to hurry it up adds anything to the final product. It is only by grace that the final product comes to completion, and it will always be perfect, because we are Christ’s masterpiece.
So while we may be frustrated with how we look right now. Messed up, streaks everywhere and certainly not even close to where I should be. May we rest in the knowledge that it’s not what the wall looks like now that accomplishes anything, it’s how the wall looks when it’s done and ONLY Christ can finish it or make any progress on it. Our efforts are like a three year old trying to help Picasso with his art.
amazing post bro. your analogy is so insightful…
i think if theres one thing that ive learned is that Christ remodels the whole room. i know throughout my journey (the redecoration of my life) i’ve been happy when i see Christ doing his work, you know over in that corner scraping away at the rough edges and so on…but then He continues working and He looks at that one corner that i’ve been keeping that i haven’t really wanted him to work on cuz i like it, i like that its there, but He says that its gotta go…and i know that its for the best, but i didn’t realize when He started…and ive learned that all (decorative) control needs to be in His hands…
hah you don’t want this three year old messing with Picasso ;)
That’s a good word, brother.
hey nate, thanks for checkin out my site and ya know what guy… its sooo true… I JUST finished my room. See another thing we need to realize as well… my dad adn I began to take off the wallpaper and in the process realized that there was about 3 layers from the past 50 years… but on top of that was like a thin layer of wood once we got the wood off we realized why it was put there … on that entire wall there was like 3 major holes… lol so in the end we ended up just tearing out the wall and rebuilding a pretty awesome wall… we have an inset for my tv and two new closets…
Why do i tell you that… well you are right in the sense that i would not even think about sleeping in that room until it was finished but also the fact that sometimes when God goes to “paint our lives” he sees things taht we couldnt see underneath and he sometimes has to actually rebuild everything before he can even paint.
And that is the lesson he is teaching me… I mean as i type i received a call that hopefully is correct because we now through about 4 mechanics believe that i will only need to pay about a total when all is said and done about $ 700.00 vs. the $1200 – $1500.00 or more… for my car… so God is already working that out…
Anyhow, God is good and we just gotta raise the level of faith and trust in him and serve him in the way we ought to by throwing down our old lives and living for him in every aspect and trust and know HE WILL BE FAITHFUL!!!
PEACE my T-Dot bro’s :-)